Dormin's Tale
by AshenMonstrosity
Summary: What was Dormin before Wander found him? How did he get imprisoned in the Forbidden Lands? rr


And Dormin looked down on the bent old man, beaming that his destructive path had led him here. How shall I do it? he thought. Burning was always a favorite, seen from his surroundings that the city would not see the dawn. I could open the land, swallowing him and watching as he fell, despair on his face in realization of his fate. Yes, Dormin thought, I will watch as he is engulfed by the very lands that he saught to defend.

His Crusade was hopeless; he had built the Empire of Tresspassers in Dormin's domain, eternally forbidden to all Humans. This was his world, as they had theirs. Yet still they entered, constructing temples and bridges and that depraved city with the horrible shrine. Towns began to appear, and like parasites the humes began to decimate the lands they touched. Rolling fields of verdant grasses, iconically broken by massive rock formations that resulted from the powerful forces He used to sculpt this land. Before He, there was nothing! And now the humes, arrogantly ignorant of their benefactor, took the lands for theirs and divided and schismed and warred and killed and---killed. Yes, before they entered this land there was harmony: Any life lost was another sustained. But now, the inherant cancers of humanity were corrupting his domain, which died more and more with every moment these pests existed. Species were wiped out. Resources were ripped from the earth. The very light in the sky was waning, until it vanished altogether and the land was plunged into darkness.

Dormin would not allow this unjustice any longer.

It took most of the remaining energy the land could provide to bring form to Dormin, as he took advantage of his corporeal form to terrorize and eradicate the little beasts. Many were eradicated in the first hours of his assault. The rest hid. It did not matter, for Dormin knew every inch of every rock, and those unfortunate to hide in the natural surroundings were soon crushed by sheer will. The ones that were able to fight back, the true monsters, the shamans and spellcasters hid in their city, using the magicks they crafted into their shrine to assault Dormin's being. It had worked, in the beginning, until their enchantments failed from the lack of power (for they used the same source, the land itself, which Dormin all but emptied).

Now, under a black sky lit from below with the fires of oblivion incarnate, Dormin stood towering over his nemesis. The one who had led the first explorers onto His fields, crossed His mountains, drained His lakes, hacked His forests, and ultimately raped the very essence of His world. Dormin was prematurely elated, knowing no power they posessed could stop him. These thoughts alone brought newfound vigor to the Master, almost as if the light was returning...

The old man muttered inconprehensibly to the wrapped cloth he held. It glowed blue then orange, and danced between the two in soft tones that seemed to reach, eager almost to escape the fabric. Dormin laughed. Their chief was desparate, going for one final blow that would fizzle and mark the end of the interlopers' reign.

The cloth dropped and revealed a sword, blacker than the dead sky above them, yet brighter than an epiphany. The blue-orange glow fractured into rays that exploded in radiance, blinding the Master. The unexpected assault threw Dormin off balance, and he staggered onto the front wall of the Shrine of Worship. The chief then held the sword, the lights now dancing aflame, in front of Dormin's head. A vabration grew, at the center of the earth that slowly advanced to the surface, where it rose to a creschendo by the time it was felt on the Shrine. Dormin felt something besides anger, pity, love, the emotions of being attatched to the land, but rather fear. This artifact was of terrifying might, and held a power Dormin had never felt so focused. He could not move. The chief froze amid the trembling earth, almost dramatically, until he finally plunged the blade into the shadowy form before him. The temperature was rising madly, coupled by the vibration that was soon a tremor and ultimately a quake. Dormin trashed and convulsed under the pain of both the blade and knowing he had lost.

He would not be so quelled. In his last bit of might, the final act that would seal his world forever, he fractured himself. The chief was thrown from atop him, becoming scorched and deteriorated by the winds and fires before he hit the stone plaza below. Dormin too was dissipating, physically, but not etherally. Seventeen individual pieces of his essence were thrown to the winds, scattering across the expansive domain. They melded into the earth as the hellstorm subsided, charging the land and rejuvinating it. Light was restored. Survivors across the plane emerged only days later, after the cacophony had died and even after until their hunger and thirst pulled them into the landscape. Most abandoned all hope and decided to leave the cursed lands, to find another, more friendly environment. Others, believing the efforts of their chief had sealed their dominance and decided to rebuild, soon discovered they were not alone.

The soul shards of Dorming had reacted with the earth, and great beasts roamed the land. Massive they were, and where an unfortunate few attempted to defeat the colossi, the remainder of the human population of Dormin's Domain (as they hurridly dubbed it in hopes of appeasing the realm's master) fled with the other survivors. The first wave of refugees were hoplessly unlucky, as one of the giants pursued them across the land. The sword that defeated Dormin happened to have been picked up by one of the warriors of the group, and several men met their fate in defeating the beast. Knowlege was gained, and the shamans and forecasters hid the sword in the new world they settled so that any man foolish enough to enter the cursed lands would die, unable to slay the beasts and bring Dormin back (as the magick crafters determined would happen should all the colossi be brought down).

In his realm, the one felled colossus having revived him enough to return sentience, Dormin waited. He waited until the fires burned out. He waited until the silence returned, and animals emerged back into the world. He waited until the cities crumbled, eroded, and returned to their natural states. His land was safe once more. The Shrine of Worship, the location where he met his first demise, stood through the ages, supported and protected by the sheer will of Dormin, so that he had a reminder of what those savage little beasts could, and would never again, do.


End file.
